Though I am gone, I urge you to answer the highest calling of your heart and stand up for what you truly believe.

As reactions to racial inequities have boiled over once again in recent days, the question is now repeatedly asked whether or not our country has at long last reached a tipping point? For those of us who are persons of white privilege, we are not guilty for the sins of our forebears, but we are responsible. We can’t change the past, but we can take hold of the present, and – for the sake of our national fabric that is so tattered and torn -- amend our lives and our social order, going forward. How?

A life with renewed purpose, healthy spirituality, embodied values, meaningful connection with others, and hope for a more just future. I write, speak, podcast, and build community surrounding faith shifting issues and anxieties. I want to build the world I want to live in—together, with you.

In a late night session on February 7, 2017, during Jeff Session’s confirmation hearing for U.S. Attorney General, just weeks after the inauguration of President Donald Trump, the United States Senate voted to silence Senator Elizabeth Warren after she read comments made decades earlier by Edward Kennedy and Coretta Scott King that criticized the civil rights record of Senator Sessions. Warren was censured because Senate Rule XIX prohibits ascribing "to another senator or to other senators any conduct or motive unworthy or unbecoming a senator." To silence her, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell led a party-line vote that forced Senator Warren to take her seat and refrain from speaking. McConnell later said “Senator Warren was giving a lengthy speech. She had appeared to violate the rule. She was warned. She was given an explanation. Nevertheless, she persisted.”

While young people today are movers and shakers, reformers and influencers, seeking voice and empowerment through protest and organization, our activism is largely restricted to political and social spheres. We will boycott products from a company that exploits labor, hold signs and march in the streets for the rights of immigrants, but we generally do not seek to reform the religious institutions of which we are a part.

This abundance of youth resources – collected from around the world – is very encouraging in terms of the future.

lake Osborne's Message to Youth

What Happened: On November 8, 58% of voting-age citizens cast ballots in the presidential election. In 2008, when Obama was elected, 64% cast ballots. When all the ballots are counted, Clinton will have won the popular vote by at least a million. Trump won the electoral college by squeaking ahead in some of the swing states: he was only 68,236 ahead in Pennsylvania, for example.

tation, salute it and say: "I salute all those Americans who risked their lives for my right to vote!" Ask your friends and family members, or in a ritual in worship, asking parishioners: "With which hand will you be voting on November 8?" Take that hand and hold it with yours, and say: "May love (or the love that is God) guide your hand to vote for the common good!"

In "The Spiritual Child", psychologist Lisa Miller presents the next big idea in psychology: the science and the power of spirituality. She explains the clear, scientific link between spirituality and health and shows that children who have a positive, active relationship to spirituality: * are 40% less likely to use and abuse substances * are 60% less likely to be depressed as teenagers * are 80% less likely to have dangerous or unprotected sex * have significantly more positive markers for thriving including an increased sense of meaning and purpose, and high levels of academic success.

Against or Through? With or For? But or And? Skits for worship

"Love the sinner, but hate the sin." This phrase has been used countless times by some Christians to pretend to offer welcome to LGBT people while condemning the natural consequence of the way God made them. It speaks for a shallow kind of love at most: one that claims to be okay with a person's same-sex orientation while stigmatizing its fulfillment. This noxious phrase also summarizes the underlying attitude of many people of other religions towards sexual minorities. It is a phrase whose time has come - and gone. More than ever, it needs to be excised from the vocabulary of faith, once and for all, as it pertains to homosexuality.

But why not all of them? Surely that’s the biblical answer to the “how many can we take?” question. Every single last one.

Somewhere down where we don't like to go, is a place where racism lives. It's automatic and hidden. Binding and resistant to change. No matter how well-meaning we are, no matter how open-minded. Like the "root kit" on a computer, racism is hidden and operating without our knowledge.

MICROAFFECTION: a subtle but endearing or comforting comment or action directed at others that is often unintentional or unconsciously affirms their worth and dignity, without any hint of condescension

Spiritual Activism is a concept originating from the understanding that youths’ incredible energy can be guided into living a life based on the “will to good” and positive social change. This begins by seeking inner peace and a connection to our consciousness. You can and you will activate your own calling for a life of meaning reflected in daily actions and service for the greater good.

Re: the Oregon mass shooting: "Harper-Mercer's mother, Laurel Harper, shared her son's passion for guns... I was so appalled by the Roseburg incident that I needed to deal with my despair by flying my fingers across my computer keyboard. This is the result – a spoof on the absurdity of owning guns for self-defense:

The S curve -- shows what happens as a new idea takes hold, or a compelling vision, or fresh leadership, or a new mission thrust. If the idea or vision has legs, it will start slowly, then gather momentum as people buy into it and become excited by it. This new vision captures many imaginations. It puts into action the deepest values of the organization -- in this case, a congregation.

I have never told this story to anyone but my husband and God, but I’m telling it now. I realized after the murders in Charleston last week that the dirty secret I’ve been keeping is a part of the problem.

I am a bit of a unicorn – a Black Puerto Rican, third generation Lutheran. I was baptized, confirmed, married, educated and called to ministry in this church. The past year has been difficult for me to reconcile my cultural identity and my denominational identity.

People connect with you on a spectrum, ranging from minimal awareness to deep engagement. Connecting with a church is a complicated process that requires multiple pathways, rather than a simple but misleading distinction between member and non-member (or "unchurched").

It is time for congregations to develop protocols for responding to hate initiatives on their doorsteps. As the intolerant lose any self-discipline in lashing out at others, we can expect a fresh round of cross-burnings, gay-bashing graffiti, and online vitriol.

Pope Francis and the Environment: Yale Examines Historic Climate Encyclical. What follows are the transcripts from the Panel on the Papal Encyclical held at Yale University on April 8, 2015.

Three Muslim organizations have raised over $100,000 to rebuild black churches in the South. "We hope this campaign encouraged non-Black Muslims to support the BlackLivesMatter Movement and remain committed to ending anti-Black racism in America," Sarsour said to HuffPost. "We have a [lot] of work to do. This is just the beginning."

Recognizing and maintaining and building our spiritual infrastructure is necessary, not a superfluous “bonus” of life. At the conclusion of his Sermon on the Mount, Jesus described this spiritual infrastructure. He said that one who hears his teachings and does them will be like one who builds a house on rock as opposed to another who builds a house on sand. The first house remains standing in the storm and flood, but the second is swept away.

The 2012 killing of Trayvon Martin, an African-American teenager in Florida, and the subsequent acquittal of his killer, brought public attention to controversial "Stand Your Ground" laws. The verdict, as much as the killing, sent shock waves through the African-American community, recalling a history of similar deaths, and the long struggle for justice. On the Sunday morning following the verdict, black preachers around the country addressed the question, "Where is the justice of God? What are we to hope for?" This book is an attempt to take seriously social and theological questions raised by this and similar stories, and to answer black church people's questions of justice and faith in response to the call of God.

I have been watching and listening to conversations about this issue, and it has taken me a while to organize my thoughts, but I think it’s time I weighed in, as a Southern White male. So here are a few thoughts: To those who point out that this was never officially the flag of the Confederacy, and rather was the battle flag of Robert E. Lee’s Army of Northern Virginia, I say that this is a specious detail. There is no symbol more widely associated with the Confederacy than the rebel flag, and that is why South Carolina chose to fly it fifty years ago.

We know what to do. The Universal Declaration of Human Rights begins: “Whereas the peoples of the United Nations have in the Charter reaffirmed their faith in fundamental human rights, in the dignity and worth of the human person and in the equal rights of men and women and have determined to promote social progress and better standards of life in larger freedom.” Unitarian Universalists claim the “inherent worth and dignity of all humanity.” Christians claim the Apostle Paul’s ecstatic revelation that “You are no longer Jew or Greek, no longer slave or freeborn, no longer ‘male and female.’ Instead you all have the same status in the service of God’s anointed Jesus.” Leviticus 19:18 says, “Love your neighbor as yourself.” Jesus said, “Love your enemies.”

When Atticus in “To Kill A Mockingbird” states to Scout, “Why reasonable people go stark raving mad when anything involving a Negro comes up, is something I don’t pretend to understand,” as a thoughtful and measured response decrying racial prejudice, no one would imagine Lee’s second novel “Go Set A Watchman,” to reveal the blight of racial strife in Atticus as an aging angry bigot and separatist. And news of Atticus taking a 180-degree turn has sent shockwaves across the Internet.

American novelist William Faulkner wrote in his 1951 novel Requiem for a Nun, “The past is never dead. It’s not even past.” As we all try to move away from America’s racial past, this recent massacre reminds us of it. For decades now, America has refused to broach the topic of white privilege. During Black History Month in 2009, then-US Attorney General Eric Holder offered an explanation as to why.